Interpreting Candidate Awareness in U. S. Congressional Elections

Abstract

A major goal of this study is to determine the extent to which candidate awareness in House and Senate elections reflects voters' contact with the candidates and to what extent it reflects attributes of the voters. The measure of candidate awareness is a scale including both recognition and recall questions for both candidates. The higher level of candidate awareness in Senate than in House elections appears to be a result of the greater amount of free information available about Senate candidates. Because less information is available about House races, contact with the candidates assumes more importance than in Senate races.